Martin Dyckman, Author at Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Martin DyckmanMay 21, 2014

Scientists fear that global warming will reach a “tipping point” beyond which it could not be halted. That may already have happened, they said last week, to the West Antarctica ice sheet. If it slides into the ocean, seas could eventually rise by as much as 10 feet worldwide. There’s a third tipping point that’s […]

Martin DyckmanMay 18, 2014

Suppose that Gov. Rick Scott cancelled an election and announced that he, not the voters, would select their new state senator or representative. That hasn’t happened–yet. But something of the same nature is happening with a circuit judgeship in Jacksonville. It doesn’t pass the smell test either. The six-year term of Donald Moran, presently the […]

Martin DyckmanMay 12, 2014

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The dinosaurs and many lesser species became extinct in the blink of an archaeological moment some 65 million years ago. Scientists attribute that to an asteroid more than six miles wide striking the earth with climate-changing force. That was a warning. Our solar neighborhood is still perilous, teeming with asteroids. Smaller ones strike earth with […]

Martin DyckmanMay 8, 2014

There has been some good news and bad news on the health-care front. The funny thing is, it’s the same news. A study reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that the death rate in Massachusetts among people 20 to 64 dropped dramatically after it adopted the nation’s first universal health care law in […]

Martin DyckmanMay 4, 2014

Whether the murderer Clayton Lockett deserved to die is beside the point to nearly everyone who has read or heard about how he died in Oklahoma Tuesday. His execution attempt, evoking images of medieval torture, was botched so badly that it had to be interrupted shortly before a heart attack completed what needles and drugs […]

Martin DyckmanApril 30, 2014

On a flight some years ago, I sat next to a French lady who was coming to the United States to visit a daughter married to an American. She was worried about her daughter’s safety in a land so conspicuously infatuated with guns. I wonder what the lady must think of us now. Since then, […]

Martin DyckmanApril 23, 2014

“Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him.” That’s the gangster Tessio in “The Godfather,” as he’s being led to his doom for conniving to betray Michael Corleone. Politics can be like that too. According to a report in the New York Times this week, Jeb Bush has earned more than $2-million for […]

Martin DyckmanApril 14, 2014

Fifty years ago, Congress was moving toward enacting the first meaningful civil rights law. Lyndon Johnson, the masterful president who was about to accomplish what had seemed impossible, was looking for someone to help implement the legislation. The choice would fall on LeRoy Collins, Florida’s former governor. It would toll the end of his political […]

Martin DyckmanApril 8, 2014

In one of those eerie coincidences that make a point, Charles H. Keating Jr. died just two days before the U.S. Supreme Court’s radical majority subverted the nation once again in its hideous McCutcheon decision. For those who don’t know or who choose –like the Congress and the court — to forget, Keating personified what’s […]

Martin DyckmanApril 6, 2014

Running for re-election in 1974, Gov. Reubin Askew limited his contributions to $300 per person — no more than $100 for each of the three phases of the campaign. The law allowed $9,000. Sen. Lawton Chiles went one better when he ran for re-election in 1976. He restricted his contributions to $10 a pop, or […]

Martin Dyckman

Martin Dyckman: We must limit campaign spending to halt ‘hostile takeover’

Martin Dyckman: Florida deserves an independent, professional elections office

Martin Dyckman: Our leaders fiddle (and avoid comment) while the world burns

Martin Dyckman: Drop in death rate is good news (or bad), depending on one’s politics

Martin Dyckman: Botched execution further weakens argument for death penalty

Martin Dyckman: The phony ‘right to bear arms’ has become a national insanity

Martin Dyckman: If Jeb Bush runs, he’ll have to tell voters ‘it was only business’

Martin Dyckman: Battle for civil rights cost some politicians their careers

Martin Dyckman: Supreme Court chief justice says you have to pay to play

Martin Dyckman: Supreme Court ruling is a death warrant for democracy